Brett Halliday: Michael Shayne's Long Chance

“I presume she wanted to see me. I’ve explained how her father kept her away from her aunt and me.”

“But you claim you hadn’t contacted her previous to that call.”

“I hadn’t.”

“How did she know where to reach you?”

“I don’t understand that either,” Drake confessed.

“Be careful,” Shayne warned harshly. “Be damned careful, Drake. This isn’t any time for covering anybody or anything up. Your life or someone else’s may depend on the truth.”

“What are you driving at?” Drake twanged nervously. “Are you suspecting me?”

“Why not? Mr. Little has told us frankly that he suspected you might harm Barbara to get your hands on that insurance money. Fifty grand makes a hell of a good motive.”

Drake laughed shortly. “You’ve forgotten something. My dear brother-in-law also told you that not one penny of that money goes to me. My wife’s death before Barbara’s nullified the effect of the policy.”

“But, were you aware of that technicality?”

“Of course I was aware of it. Do you think I’m a complete fool?” Drake asked testily.

“No,” said Shayne, “I don’t think that. Knowing that provision in the policy, it meant a difference of fifty grand to you if Barbara died before your wife. Isn’t that so?”

“Well — yes. That’s the point I’ve just made.”

“And your wife was on her deathbed. You knew that. So you made a hurried trip away from home. You went to Miami and demanded that Little put you in touch with Barbara. He refused, but you knew she was in New Orleans and came here to locate her.”

“Those are partial truths,” Drake admitted. “I knew my wife had little longer to live. She wanted to see Barbara again before she died. I pleaded with Little in Miami to give me her address. But he refused his only sister that final consolation.”

“Yet your visit to New Orleans so alarmed him that he hired me to rush here and protect her from you. That’s a fact, isn’t it, Little?”

Joseph Little said, “It is,” with compressed lips.

“You’ve got one more chance,” Shayne told Drake slowly, “to explain the telephone message.”

“You still seem to miss the main point,” Drake said with dignity, “that at the time of the murder I had no possible motive. It was then too late even if, as my brother-in-law has charged, I had had such a plan. Good heavens, don’t you see? Elizabeth had already passed away.”

Shayne shook his head. “You’re the one who is missing the real point, Drake. You didn’t know about your wife’s death until after Barbara was murdered.”

Drake’s face blanched. He had left off his make-up, and his skin was gray and withered.

“That gives you a perfect motive,” Shayne went on harshly. “Now do you want to explain how Barbara knew how to reach you — or do you still believe you’re not the logical suspect?”

Drake shook his head laxly. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”

“Think hard,” Shayne urged him. “Your guide to the Club Daphne was Henri Desmond. He knew Margo Macon well. Did you have some conversation about your niece? Did you say anything to him that might have given him the idea you were her uncle?”

“No,” Drake muttered. “I’m sure we didn’t.”

Shayne turned to Henri Desmond. “How about it? Do you recall anything you might have said to Margo about Drake’s presence here at the Angelus?”

“I don’t know nothing about that,” he answered sullenly. “I got mad at her, sure. But I never went back. I can prove—”

Shayne turned from Henri and explained to Inspector Quinlan, “That point has bothered me. I realized there was a chance Barbara might have learned about her uncle through Henri. If she didn’t, there’s just one other answer,” he ended slowly.

Shayne took a cigarette from his pack, snapped a match on his thumbnail, and the sound was like a small explosion in the intense stillness of the inner room. He swung on Joseph Little and said, “That leaves you.”

The editor smiled wanly. “Are you joking, Mr. Shayne?”

“I don’t joke at a time like this. You knew Drake was in New Orleans. You knew he was at the Angelus Hotel — you phoned him there as soon as you hit town today. You saw a chance to drag him into it — to complicate the picture — so you had Margo Macon phone him just before you murdered her.”

“I?” Little exclaimed, frowning over his pince-nez. “Surely you’re not serious, Shayne. I was on the New York train at the time. Inspector Quinlan’s telegram was delivered to me on the train.”

“At two o’clock. On the other side of Jacksonville. Time enough, Little, to have flown here after I talked with you over long-distance — and after learning your sister was dead and the insurance would revert to you. Time to commit the murder and fly to Jacksonville in time to make that same train out and complete your alibi.”

Little said stiffly, “This is hardly the time for such preposterous and unfounded statements.”

“Timothy Rourke just flew here from Miami in a little over three hours in a chartered plane,” Shayne told him placidly. “It’s no use, Little. It’ll be easy enough to find the pilot and have you identified.”

Little threw up his hands in resignation. He said wonderingly to Inspector Quinlan, “Do I have to sit here and listen to such an infamous accusation? That I murdered my own daughter for her insurance!”

“Not your daughter,” Shayne corrected him. “A girl named Margo Macon. Remember? An unsuccessful writer who was ready to give up her writing and her life a month ago until a kindly editor gave her new hope by financing a trip to New Orleans — planting her here for a decoy marked for slaughter as soon as your sister died, to make the job worthwhile.”

Little was leaning forward, staring in incredulous amazement. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that Margo Macon was not your daughter. Barbara Little committed suicide in Miami a month ago. When her body was dredged up from the bay, you refused to identify it, for that would have given the $50,000 policy to your sister and eventually into the hands of Edmund Drake. You let your daughter be buried in a nameless grave while you thought up this brilliant plan. You knew your sister could not live long, and all you had to do was pretend that Barbara was alive until after your sister’s death — to cause the money to revert to you.”

A series of sighs shook Joseph Little’s frame. “You have a remarkable imagination, Mr. Shayne,” he said wearily. “I can’t believe you’re serious.”

“The hell I’m not. What really makes me sore is that you picked me out for a stooge. You knew Drake was here looking for Barbara and you had to work fast. You sent me here to keep Drake away from Margo and to use me as a witness to identify the girl as your daughter after you’d mutilated her so that definite identification of the corpse was impossible. You gave me a photograph of Margo Macon, telling me it was Barbara. After killing her, you had to steal that photograph so no one who knew the real Barbara would see it.”

Mr. Little compressed his lips primly. His reaction to Shayne’s accusation was, apparently, complete boredom and annoyance. He said dryly, “I’m afraid you’ve been reading some of the magazines I edit.”

Shayne said, “Like most intelligent men who plan the perfect crime, you made a couple of mistakes. That phone call to Drake was one. Stealing the photograph from my room was another. You were the only man who knew I had that picture, Little. You were the only man involved who knew my room in the Hyers Hotel was directly across the balcony from Margo’s apartment. It had to be you.”